What the Heart Wants
by Escape-At-Midnight
Summary: You know how they always say that if a boy teases you, it's because he likes you? Ever wonder why Ali was so ruthless to Toby? What really happened the night of The Jenna Thing? Rated T for language and some innuendo.


**A/N: For this fic, let's just pretend that Courtney doesn't exist. **

"Hmm… how about Casey Kirschner, Aria's brother, and Sean Ackard!" Spencer Hastings giggled. She and her best friends Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, and Alison DiLaurentis were lounging in Ali's basement on a typical Friday night, playing a game of "Marry One, Kiss One, Kill One".

"Easy!" Hanna answered. "Kill Mike, marry Sean, and kiss Casey. No offense, Aria. Although I'd rather kiss _and _marry Sean."

"Okay," Spencer laughed, "those weren't the best the choices." She looked around at the girls, choosing her next victim. As her eyes landed on Alison, the corners of her mouth moved to form a devious smirk.

"Ali! You're next." Spencer's eyes drifted to the ceiling as she thought of the worst combination possible. "Andrew Campbell, Toby Cavanaugh, and that guy from Wawa who smells like onions!"

At the sound of his name, Ali's heat skipped a beat. Though she would never admit it in million years, she loved Toby Cavanaugh. But admitting that would mean losing her reputation and adoration of all of Rosewood, just because of a guy. And that was _so _not worth it. Right?

"Ew, I would rather kill myself!" Ali declared, and the girls laughed. As Spencer moved on to her next target, Aria, Ali was only half listening. _God, _she thought. _Of all the guys in the world, it had to him. _Why couldn't it have been Ian Thomas? Come on, everyone loved that guy, and it was pretty obvious that he thought she was cute. Oh, well. As they say, the heart wants what the heart wants. And Alison's heart wanted Toby.

She wasn't even quite sure what it was that she liked about him so much. Was it his sparkling blue eyes? Or how he was so mysterious? Sure, he _was _kinda creepy, but in that "tortured soul" kind of way that Ali secretly loved.

Soon after, Ali declared that she was bored of the game and wanted to go outside for a bit. It was still relatively light out, and the mid spring air had that perfect balance of not being too hot, but not too cold either. Of course, the girls agreed. With the exception of Spencer's occasional protests, they did everything Ali told them. Once they were outside, Alison cranked up the volume on her iPod speakers, kicked off her pale pink flip-flops, and dipped her feet in her family's pool.

Emily sighed. "Why can't every day be like this? I wish my parents could afford a house in this neighborhood." Unlike most girls in Rosewood, Emily was totally fine with admitting that her family wasn't as rich as most of her classmates' families.

Ali considered using this as an opportunity to make a wise crack, but decided against it. "Yeah, it's pretty nice."

"I spy with my little eye," Aria sang, "something purple!"

"Yeah, well I spy something _creepy._" Spencer sneered. She pointed over the fence. Through one of cracks between the boards, a pair of blue eyes was peering into the DiLaurentis backyard. _Toby._

"What the hell are you _doing?_" Spencer shouted. "Can't get a real girlfriend, so you resort to sick fantasies?"

Alison could feel her cheeks getting hot and hoped none of her friends noticed. She wasn't sure weather to feel violated or flattered, or just plain creeped out. As much as she wanted to defend Toby, she didn't know what to say.

"Actually, he does have girlfriend," Ali finally cackled, "Her name is Righty!"

Her friends doubled over with laughter. Spencer gave her a high five. Ordinarily, Alison would have felt proud to have come up with something so clever on the spot like that. But in reality, Ali felt like someone had just punched her right in the gut. How much longer could she keep up this charade? Or should she just try to ignore her feelings? Lately, she wasn't sure of anything.

"I think I wanna go back inside." Emily squeaked. Aria, Spencer, and Hanna nodded in agreement.

"You go," Ali replied, "I want to give _him_-" she pointed at Toby, who was, miraculously, still standing at the fence, "a piece of my mind!"

"'Kay," The girls quickly stood up and scampered back into Ali's house.

Alison's mind was running a mile a minute. Why hadn't she just told him to eff off and went inside with her friends? She should just tell him to go home to Righty. Even if there was no one around, it wasn't like she could say what she was really thinking. He probably thought she was an evil bitch, anyway. Maybe it was better that way. She _was _a bitch, to him and to everyone, and liked being that way.

"It's okay," Toby said suddenly, interrupting Ali's thoughts, "You don't have to tell me off. I'm a freak and a stalker, I know. I'll go now." He turned and started down the driveway.

"Wait! Stop!" Ali heard herself call. She fumbled with the lock on the gate, struggling to get it open. She cursed at it under her breath, her heart beginning to race. Finally, it opened, and she ran to catch up with Toby, not even bothering to close the gate.

"Toby!"

He slowly turned to face her, not meeting her eyes. "What do you want?"

Ali hesitated. That was a loaded question; what _did _she want? "I'm not mad about what happened. All I want to know is why you did it."

Toby took a breath. "I don't want to say it. You'll never let me live it down."

"No, I won't. Promise!" Ali held her pinky in the air as proof.

Toby was still looking at the ground. "Maybe I…I…like you." As soon as he realized what he had said, Toby clapped his hands to his mouth like a little kid that had accidentally said a cuss word. "Crap!"

Alison beamed. "No, no, it's okay…because I like you, too, Toby." She felt as if she was on top of the world, that suddenly none of her problems were really that big of a deal. All that mattered was that she was here with the only boy she actually wanted that hadn't thrown himself at her, and he liked her back.

"No way! You're just setting me up! I'll bet one of your friends is hiding somewhere recording this!" Toby snapped.

"I'm not! I'll prove it!" Ali said. Quickly, before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned forward and lightly kissed him.

When she pulled back, Toby's face was unreadable. _What? _Any other guy would've killed to have Alison kiss him! What gave him the right to-?

Suddenly, Toby wrapped his arms around Ali's waist and pulled her closer, kissing her deeply. It felt forbidden, even dangerous. Where in the world had the town creeper learned to kiss like this?

When they pulled away this time, Toby was smiling goofily.

"Wow," Ali whispered.

Toby wound his fingers into hers. "I have something I want to ask you, though. If this is how you've felt about me all this time, why are you always so bitchy to me?"

She paused. _Ah, why not tell him? _she thought. _Everything's out in the open now anyway. _"I had to be, because if everyone knew I actually liked you, what would they think of me?"

"You're really immature, you know that?" Toby dropped her hand.

"_I'm _not the Peeping Tom! Which, despite everything that's just happened, is still really freaky." She absentmindedly checked the time on her cell phone. Nearly twenty minutes had passed since Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily had left the pool. They were probably wondering where she was.

"I gotta go. The girls are waiting for me." She started back towards her house.

"Wait." Toby grabbed her arm. "Look, I'm sorry. About everything. Let's just start over. Forget the past and just focus on now."

"You're forgiven." She kissed him on the cheek.

"Meet up with me tonight. I'll give you a signal later. We've got some things to talk about."

She kissed him one last time. "Sounds perfect."

When Ali returned to her basement, her friends were crowded around Emily. Spencer was dusting blush on her cheeks, Aria was experimenting with eye shadow, and Hanna was French braiding her hair. Out of the five of them, it usually Emily that ended up getting attacked with gooey lip gloss and mascara wands. Since her mom didn't let her wear makeup, she didn't up much of a fight.

"Stop moving so much," Hanna said, undoing the section of hair she had been working on and starting again.

"Sorry, Han."

Ali padded across the room toward where Emily was sitting and inspected her friends' work. "Nice," she said, giving an approving nod.

"Thanks." Aria snapped her eye shadow palette shut. "Hey, what took you so long?"

"I, uh, walked around a bit." Ali quickly fibbed, "I was just _so _pissed off, but I'm better now." Okay, so it wasn't the best lie she'd ever come up with, but there hadn't been a lot of time to come up with something more convincing. And it wasn't like she could tell them the truth. Not yet, anyway.

Luckily, no one questioned her. And as soon as Hanna was finished braiding, they began the activity for which this sleepover was planned for: clothes swapping. A few days ago, Ali had declared that she was "so bored" of her wardrobe. The others agreed that theirs could use some help too, so they decided to bring some of their unwanted clothes and trade them.

The girls scattered the clothes all over the floor. It looked like a tornado had gone through the room. Aria pulled on a blazer of Spencer's and twirled around the room.

"Take it," Spencer told her, "it'll look great on you."

Emily wriggled into one of Ali's sundresses. "What do you think?" she asked, "Enough coverage?"

"By my standards, yeah. By your mom's… probably not. Looks like another piece for the sock drawer." Ali answered. She wandered over and picked up a semi-cute pair of Hanna's jeans.

"Hey, Han, how old are these?" She asked.

"I dunno. I probably got them last spring." Hanna sat in the corner, pretending to be deeply interested in her thumbnail. Hanna had been super self-conscious about her weight the past few months, and by the looks of it was planning on keeping clothed for as long as she could.

_Whatever, _Ali thought. She wasn't about to let Hanna's I'm-so-fat routine ruin her fun tonight. She slid on the jeans. They were a little big around the waist, but nothing a cute belt couldn't fix. But the flare at the calves were uncomfortable, not to mention unattractive.

"Too bell-bottomy," She declared, sliding off the pants. As she strode past the window, she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Two little blue specks against the blackness outside. _Holy shit._

"Oh my God!" Ali yelled, both out of surprise and a mixture of excitement and alarm. This was definitely the signal. A pretty freakin' creepy one, but a signal.

Aria, who had previously been prancing around the room in her bra, grabbed a shirt and held it up to her chest. "Ew, ew, ew!"

Spencer ran to the window. "Get away from us, perv!"

Toby smirked and ran away.

Suddenly, Ali had a brilliant idea. And idea that allowed her to sneak away from her friends without suspicion and have some fun with Toby at the same time.

"We should get him back," she growled. "You know he's probably up in his tree house right now imagining us all naked."

"Shit." Hanna whispered, crossing her arms over her chest.

"We should take one of those bottle rockets he keeps by the tree and set if off right by the window. It'll totally scare the crap out of him!" Ali looked to the girls for approval, but no one said a word.

"I dunno, Al," Spencer finally said, "We could get in a lot of trouble."

"Relax. No one will see us, and what's the worst that could happen? He gets so scared he pees himself to death?" Despite everything that had happened tonight, the mental image still made Ali laugh.

Hanna was the first to cave. "Alright. Serves him right, anyway." The others quickly agreed.

"Fabulous! I'll go do it. You guys stay here." Without waiting for a response, Alison bounded out the door and across the street to Toby's yard.

She rummaged through the box that was at the base of the tree that housed Toby's tree house and pulled out a bottle rocket. She wondered why he would leave bottle rockets outside where anyone could get to them, but whatever. After he knew she was there, he'd let the ladder down for her and the two of them could have a romantic rendezvous.

She got into position and lit the fuse. Hey! She could see him now through the tree house's window. And… Jenna? His dorky stepsister? What was she doing up there with him? And… why was her shirt open?

The world suddenly began to move in slow motion. Toby knelt down by Jenna and put a hand on her neck. What the _hell _was he doing? Jenna looked terrified as his other hand slid her bra strap off her shoulder. _What the fu-?_

**BOOM!**

Before Ali could finish her thought, the firework shot out of her hand right into the tree house's window. There was an awful scream, and Ali ran back to her house, the adrenaline carrying her faster than she ever thought she could go. She knelt in the bushes, her heart racing. The tree house quickly became engulfed in flames. What if someone died? Would Ali go to jail? What about her friends? They were partially involved, right?

Someone must have called 911, because soon the sounds of sirens pierced the air and ambulances sped down the street. Paramedics got out and raced up to the tree house.

_Oh, God, oh, God. I'm dead. _Ali thought. Maybe if she kept hidden and didn't move, no one would know what she had done…

"_Alison. _What. The. _Hell?_" came a furious voice from behind her.

Ali jumped a foot in the air and whirled around. Apparently Toby had gotten out unharmed. But was Jenna okay?

"I should ask you the same thing, _Toby._" she snarled. "Who knew you were into incest?"

"She's not my real sister! And besides," he put his hand on her cheek, "you know I like you."

Ali shot away from him as if he had burned her. "Save it! You're just as big a creep as everyone says!"

"Please, please don't tell anyone." His eyes were like a puppy's after it had been scolded. Seeing him like that gave Ali some sympathy for him… but not quite enough to totally let him off the hook.

"I won't… but only if you don't tell police it was me who lit the firework."

"Then what am I supposed to tell them?"

"Figure it out."

With that, she went back into her house.

"She's back!" Emily called when she saw Ali walk in the room.

"Thank the Lord," Spencer said, "We were starting to worry that something bad happened to you. What happened out there, anyway?"

It took Ali a few moments to catch her breath. Should she tell them? What would happen if she did? She'd made a promise, after all. She wasn't going back on her word unless Toby went back on his.

"I- I don't know. But it wasn't my fault."

"Guys! Come look!" Aria, who was still stationed on the couch by the window, called.

The girls raced over to the couch and squished their faces together so that they could all see the scene outside. The paramedics were loading someone into the ambulance. Ali couldn't breathe. It couldn't be Toby. She had just seen him outside in the bushes. So the only other person it could be was…

"Oh my God," Aria clapped a hand to her mouth. "It's Jenna!"

The rest of the night was somewhat anticlimactic. There were a lot of tears and worries. Ali kept assuring the girls that everything would be okay, though she wasn't sure if that was necessarily true. By morning, reports had surfaced that Toby had confessed that he was playing with the fireworks and that it was a freak accident that one of them had hurt Jenna. No charges were filed against anyone, but his parents were furious. So furious, in fact, that they were sending him to some boarding school in Maine as soon as possible.

Ali was devastated. Despite his Peeping Tom tendencies and the disgusting thing she'd seen him do, her feelings for him hadn't changed. She watched out her window as his family was packing the car to take Toby away forever. Eventually, Mr. and Mrs. Cavanaugh went inside, leaving Toby alone. Ali seized this chance to see him one last time and ran across the street.

"Ali. I'm surprised you'd still want to speak to me." Toby said as she ran up to him.

"I'm gonna miss you, Toby. Despite everything."

"I guess it just wasn't meant to be, huh? It's just been one disaster after another."

Ali felt the tears well up in her eyes. "Don't say that! We can still be together. It might be weird, but –"

"No, Alison," Toby cut her off, "As much as it sucks, it's not going to work. You're the most popular girl in Rosewood, and I'm the freaky kid."

She couldn't hold them back any longer. The tears were flowing freely down her face.

"Goodbye, Alison." Toby kissed her cheek. "Now go. My parents will be back any second."

Ali turned and ran back to her house, her vision blurry. It was a wonder she found the doorknob. She sat at the kitchen table, desperate to calm herself.

_I'm Ali and I'm fabulous… I'm Ali and I'm fabulous… Gotta forget about him…_

Looking up, the clock above the stove read 11:11. Emily, who was very superstitious, always said that you could make as many wishes as you could during the magical time of 11:11, but if you opened your eyes and the clock said 11:12, it wouldn't come true.

Normally Ali didn't believe in any of that stuff. But she was desperate, and desperate times call for desperate measures. She closed her eyes.

_I wish that everything could go back to normal and Toby and I stood a chance._

She opened her eyes. It was 11:12.


End file.
